SAN RAMON — Frustrated residents are trying to dissuade San Ramon city officials from completing a purchase of an office building near their homes and turning it into a police station.

“We don’t want it,” a chorus of residents shouted during a community meeting on the subject Thursday evening.

They didn’t get very far. City Manager Herb Moniz explained to the crowd of 30 residents that the purchase is necessary because current police facilities were cramped, and that the $7.1 million asking price for the 61,000-square-foot office building at 2401 Crow Canyon Road was a good deal because it was about $1 million below market rate.

The building will be purchased with Redevelopment Agency Funds for a temporary police facility, until the permanent facility is constructed as part of the city’s downtown development project. The economy has put that project on indefinite hold.

The City Council approved the purchase at its March 9 meeting. Moniz said the sale will be finalized soon.

He added that he hopes the city can work with residents at this point to make the station fit in with the neighborhood.

“We will work with you as we go along,” Moniz said.

Residents fear that having a police station near their homes will bring a criminal element into their quiet neighborhood, increase traffic and noise, and bring down property values — because residents believe no one will want to live next to a police station.

Residents said they were also appalled to learn about the proposed purchase just a few days before the City Council, also acting as the Redevelopment Agency, voted on it. A legal notice was printed and the homeowners association was notified.

Police Chief Scott Holder told the residents that the station was not like what they see on television, mentioning that he gave tours of the facility to elementary school students all the time. There will be no holding cell at that location, he added.

Sex-offender registration is done at the Dougherty Valley substation, Holder said, and will continue to be done there. No new police functions will be added at the Crow Canyon Road facility.

Andrew Pryfogle asked Thursday if the city would consider holding off on the purchase until more studies can be done. Moniz said he would pass that along to his boss — the City Council — but the city does plan to finalize the project.

Moniz responded to residents’ comments by saying he was just doing what the City Council had asked him to do.

“That’s where we’ll go next,” Pryfogle said of the council. Residents plan to attend Tuesday’s council meeting to protest the sale.

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